Personal Safety Awareness and ideas on how to keep yourself safe

Personal Safety Awareness and ideas on how to keep yourself safe and being aware of your surroundings

We recently held personal safety awareness training in my organisation and so I thought I’d share some of the key points for everyone visiting this blog.

Firstly if your bag is grabbed – let it go! If you hang on you could get hurt. You are more valuable than your handbag.

The training teaches that safety awareness is not about fighting. It is about the skills you need to be aware. Do you carry a personal alarm? If so, carry it in your hand, not your bag and make sure it carries on sounding if it drops to the ground.

A useful tip is not to carry everything in your bag when you are walking home. Take your phone out and put it in your pocket, the same with keys. Never have your credit cards and money in the same wallet, carry them in a different card holder or purse.

Here are some more tips:

If someone attempts to grab your bag, throw it away from you so that the attacker will follow the bag, and you can make your escape.

Avoid chatting or texting on your mobile as you walk along – you won’t be fully aware of what is going on around you

If you think someone is following you – look at them and then cross the road, look round again and look at them, cross the road again. If you are still worried, get to the nearest place where there are people, anywhere with a lot of lights on – and most importantly, call the police

If you want to listen to music, only wear one earphone so you can hear the outside world with the other ear. This is especially important whencrossing roads, as you need to hear traffic

Make as much noise as possible, shout and scream, anything that will attractattention. Set off your personal alarm

On public transport, especially late at night – make sure you know when your last train or bus leaves

If you are frightened, tell someone. Choose a family group rather than an individual. Ask if you can stay with them until you feel safe.

If you are attacked, the training stresses the importance of calling the police and of gathering and remembering as much information as possible. You do not even have to go to the police station; you can be interviewed in your own home if you wish and there are non-police organisations (such as The Havens) which specialise in helping victims of assault or rape. You have every right to defend yourself with reasonable force with items you have with you, such as an umbrella, hairspray and keys. The law does not allow carrying anything that can be described as an offensive weapon.

Stay Safe.